No
555 karma · joined May 25, 2010
Rockets are cool but are they progress? Depends on your (subjective, personal) beliefs and value system. IMO they’re part of a self-fulfilling quasi-religion that predicts and through sheer will basically ensures a certain techno-capitalisto-centric future at the cost of everything else.
Either way, I reject the idea that you’re either a conformist or you should celebrate Musk. I would go as far as saying that Musk fans, like Trump fans, are probably more conforming and susceptible to groupthink than most folks.
You can't summarize the world with "People want the most convenience in their lives" and use that to explain or justify the state of things.
A couple examples: Cars compete with public transit and are highly subsidized. "Roads" are a public transportation method that doesn't have to be profitable in people's minds. But "Public transit" does. There's so much more and the information is readily available.
Every other country has seen a reduction in the number of deaths over time, without self driving cars.
Self-driving cars isn't progress. Larger and heavier cars isn't progress. Cars with insane eye-searing LED headlights isn't progress.
We could use... trains & buses. Self-driving trains and buses!
But self-driving individual cars, because they will make the time more bearable, will induce even more driving, which is the opposite of what we want.
They won't reduce congestion and traffic, because people won't have to drive they'll be OK with being on the road longer. You just hang out in your living room on wheels.
Parking... Where are the cars going to park exactly? How far from the restaurants and homes etc? Won't the extra trips from/to parking lots create more traffic?
Reduced income requirements, that's a new one to me. These cars will have more tech that's more expensive to build and maintain. How does that make them cheaper?
50%+ of car trips are less than three miles... as a society what we need is a way to make those trips without cars.
10000% we need safer designs for streets and roads, better education, automated enforcement of speed limits, dis-incentives for larger/heavier/more dangerous vehicles, ...
All of these things need to be done, and can be done with existing technology today. We don't need self-driving cars to address our problems; they're essentially a distraction and an excuse to postpone improvements.
Is it just me or does this suck a lot? Thousands of people unsure about their fate, refreshing their calendar, checking for... the lack of an invite? So much added stress and anxiety.
Surely they could send two versions of the email, specifying to each person if they are affected or not.
But again what makes you think that AVs won't be personal cars with the same ownership model? GM is suddenly going to be cool with selling 1/10000th of the cars they sell today?
Not based on real utilization of cars today (5% utilization, 95% parked)
There is a stronger monetary incentive to sell at least one car to every single person :)
> Restore millions of sqft in parking spaces to be reclaimed for parks and housing.
That was also my hope. I don't think it'll happen. People will use autonomous cars like they use uber/lyft/taxis but they will still have their personal cars... Those will need the same amount of parking, or more given electrification and long charge times.
> As AVs scale, there cost will go below that of personal car ownership Why?
> AVs maintain the same flexibility as personal cars, something public transit cannot resolve.
Sure. Why are we testing/using them in SF, a city that can resolve its transportation needs with public transit and light electric vehicles?
> As Personal cars ownership declines, real progress in emissions, land and safety will be made.
My whole point is we can make these progresses today.
Self driving cars and other innovations cribbed from sci-fi, are a distraction that prevent us from addressing our real issues in real ways.
> Your suggestions just add more regulation and fees that always end up impacting low income people more.
Actually, none of my suggestions would impact low-income people more.
You don't think giving 24/7 control of all personal vehicles to a handful of companies is going to hurt lower-income people?
Lol no. When I say "this technology is unnecessary" that doesn't means I think "all technology is unnecessary" :shrug"
I think software engineers are wholly unprepared and uneducated to be designing and building these things. This is a domain where the rules and responsibilities should be very well defined, and close to what you see in other "hard" engineering domains.
Here's a dumb list of some of the automation I want to see:
- Automated speed and acceleration limits based on location. In cities, 20km/h. From 0 to 20 in 5 seconds. On highways, whatever makes sense. But, sorry, you can't go 200 km/h unless you're on a track, a train or a plane.
- Automated / smart traffic lights to end unnecessary stopping and waiting, while giving priority to emergency vehicles, transit, pedestrians, bicycles over individual cars
- Automated emergency vehicle notification to drivers, without increasingly loud,blaring sirens (esp. at night when the streets are empty and response times are 2x better than during the day in the first place)
- Mandatory collision mitigation and other safety assists; you shouldn't have to pay more money to get a safer vehicle (especially safer for others)
- ...but no autopilot allowed outside of specific places/times (eg. certain highway segments at certain times)
- Automated, guaranteed fines when speeding, running red lights or driving recklessly.
- APIs for cities/counties/regions to influence routing decisions made by maps applications: people are free to drive on small streets but the algorithm should not send them there. Before I started using it, waze, in particular, often steered me to complicated routes via small streets to save 90 seconds in a 15 minute trip. Cities should be able to align traffic engineering decisions at all levels.
- Automated engine shutoff and notifications to prevent idling and educate folks. I see people browsing for minutes before/after driving, with the engine on. People eating in their cars with the engine on, etc. In front of folks sitting at a cafe etc. Just ignominious stuff given the noise, heat and air pollution output (idling generates more toxic exhaust than driving).